Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,
Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall;
A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure,
And fresh hearts, unconscious of sorrow and thrall;
Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure—
God that is over us all.
—Jean Ingelow.
THE LARK AT THE DIGGINGS
The house was thatched and whitewashed, and English was written on it and on every foot of ground round it. A furze bush had been planted by the door. Vertical oak palings were the fence, with a five-barred gate in the middle of them. From the little plantation all the magnificent trees and shrubs of Australia had been excluded, and oak and ash reigned safe from overtowering rivals. They passed to the back of the house, and there George’s countenance fell a little, for on the oval grass-plot and gravel-walk he found from thirty to forty rough fellows, most of them diggers.
Charles Reade
“Ah, well,” said he, on reflection, “we could not expect to have it all to ourselves, and indeed it would be a sin to wish it, you know. Now, Tom, come this way; here it is, here it is—there!” Tom looked up, and in a gigantic cage was a light brown bird.
He was utterly confounded. “What, is it this we came twelve miles to see?”
“Ay! and twice twelve wouldn’t have been much to me.”
“Well, but what is the lark you talked of?”